ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: Experience-based herbal medicine as a complementary to modern western medicine has triggered an array of studies in quest of novel anticancer drugs. Scutellaria barbata D. Don (SB) is commonly used to treat different types of cancers, but its molecular mechanism of action is not clearly understood. In this study, we attempted to elucidate the mode of action of a traditional Chinese medicine prescription with a total of 14 components, named Lian-Jia-San-Jie-Fang (LJSJF, in Chinese), where SB works as the "principle" against non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cells...

Caveolin-1 (Cav1) is an integral plasma membrane protein and a complex regulator of signal transduction. The Signal Transducer and Activator of Transcription-3 (Stat3) is activated by a number of receptor and non-receptor tyrosine kinases and is positively implicated in cancer. Despite extensive efforts, the relationship between Cav1 and Stat3 has been a matter of controversy. We previously demonstrated that engagement of E- or N-cadherin or cadherin-11 cell to cell adhesion molecules, as occurs with confluence of cultured cells, triggers a dramatic increase in the levels of tyr705 phosphorylated ie activated Stat3, by a mechanism requiring the cRac1 small GTPase...

Fascin-1 is a cytoskeletal protein and it can specifically bind to F-actin, it can be abnormally expressed in a variety of solid tumors. Fascin-1 was identified as a factor for poor prognosis in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). However, the relevant molecular mechanisms are not yet fully understood. In this study, the fascin-1 knockdown cells were produced by lentivirus infection, and then cell proliferation, invasion and cell migration assay were used to investigate the role of fascin-1 in NSCLC cells. The MAPK pathway related proteins were determined by western blot...

Purpose of review: The majority of patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) present with advanced disease and overall survival rates are poor. This article outlines the current and outstanding evidence for the use of multimodality treatment in this group of patients, including in combination with an increasing number of treatment options, such as immunotherapy and genotype-targeted small molecule inhibitors. Recent findings: Optimal therapy for surgically resectable stage III disease remains debatable and currently the choice of treatment reflects each individual patient's disease characteristics and the expertise and opinion of the thoracic multi-disciplinary team...

Crizotinib is an oral small-molecule inhibitor of anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) tyrosine-kinase that has been approved for treating patients with advanced echinoderm microtubule associated protein like 4-ALK rearranged non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN) is a rare adverse event associated with crizotinib. The present study reported a case of a 75-year-old Chinese male patient with advanced NSCLC with ALK fusion, who developed TEN after 56 days of crizotinib treatment and demised due to this dermatological adverse event...

We investigated the short- and long-term efficacy of thoracoscope-assisted segmental resection of lung of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). We selected a total of 94 patients with lung cancer in the early stage who were admitted to The First People's Hospital of Xuzhou for treatment between March 2011 and February 2012. Patients were divided randomly into either the control group (n=47) or the observation group (n=47). In the observation group, patients received thoracoscope-assisted segmental resection of lung, while in the control group, the conventional thoracic surgery was performed for treatment...

Despite recent advances in therapeutic options, lung cancer is the leading cause of death among malignant diseases worldwide. Glutamine-dependence is an established attribute in cancer tissue with emerging importance as a diagnostic and therapeutic target. We analysed the expression of SLC1a5, a major glutamine transporter, in the primary tumour and corresponding nodal metastasis of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) to investigate its biological impact. Expression of SLC1a5 was analysed by immunohistochemistry in 259 NSCLC and in 142 nodal metastases and correlated with clinicopathological parameters including overall survival...

Lung cancer is the leading cause of death by cancer in North America. A decade ago, genomic rearrangements in the anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) receptor tyrosine kinase were identified in a subset of non-small cell lung carcinoma (NSCLC) patients. Soon after, crizotinib, a small molecule ATP-competitive ALK inhibitor was proven to be more effective than chemotherapy in ALK-positive NSCLC patients. Crizotinib and two other ATP-competitive ALK inhibitors, ceritinib and alectinib, are approved for use as a first-line therapy in these patients, where ALK rearrangement is currently diagnosed by immunohistochemistry and in situ hybridization...

Lung neoplasms are the leading cause of death by cancer worldwide. Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) constitutes more than 80% of all lung malignancies and the majority of patients present advanced disease at onset. However, in the last decade, multiple oncogenic driver alterations have been discovered and each of them represents a potential therapeutic target. Although KRAS mutations are the most frequently oncogene aberrations in lung adenocarcinoma patients, effective therapies targeting KRAS have yet to be developed...

BACKGROUND: EGFR-dependent cell migration plays an important role in lung cancer progression. Our previous study observed that the HECT E3 ubiquitin ligase NEDD4 is significantly correlated with tumor metastasis and required for migration and invasion signaling of EGFR in gastric cancer cells. However, how NEDD4 promotes the EGFR-dependent lung cancer cell migration is unknown. This study is to elucidate the mechanism by which NEDD4 mediates the EGFR lung cancer migration signaling. METHODS: Lentiviral vector-loaded NEDD4 shRNA was used to deplete endogenous NEDD4 in lung cancer cell lines...

Acquired T790 M mutation is the commonest cause of resistance for advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutant patients who had progressed after first line EGFR TKI (tyrosine kinase inhibitor). Several third generation EGFR TKIs which are EGFR mutant selective and wild-type (WT) sparing were developed to treat these patients with T790 M acquired resistant mutation. Osimertinib is one of the third generation EGFR TKIs and is currently the most advanced in clinical development...

Anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) gene activation is involved in the carcinogenesis process of several human cancers such as anaplastic large cell lymphoma, lung cancer, inflammatory myofibroblastic tumors and neuroblastoma, as a consequence of fusion with other oncogenes (NPM, EML4, TIM, etc) or gene amplification, mutation or protein overexpression. ALK is a transmembrane tyrosine kinase receptor that, upon ligand binding to its extracellular domain, undergoes dimerization and subsequent autophosphorylation of the intracellular kinase domain...

BACKGROUND: Several experiences in the literature report SBRT as an effective treatment option for medically inoperable early stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and oligometastatic disease. The optimal fractionation schedules and total dose remain controversial. In this study, we evaluated the safety in terms of toxicity and efficacy of using of 8-10 fractions schedules with Helical Tomotherapy (HT) for primary and metastatic lung lesions. METHODS: Between March 2014 and May 2016, a total of 39 patients (median age 72 years, range 26-91) were treated with HT-SBRT for malignant lung lesions: 22 patients with early stage NSCLC, 17 with oligometastases...

CT-707, a mutant-selective inhibitor of an important cancer target, anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK), is designed to be a targeted therapeutic agent for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients harboring ALK active and crizotinib resistant mutations. A rapid and sensitive ultra-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS) method was developed and validated for the determination of CT-707 and its two metabolites (M1 and M2) in human plasma. The samples were purified by solid phase extraction (SPE) and separated on a BEH C18 column (2...

INTRODUCTION: Autophagy not only plays an important role in the progression of cancer but also is involved in tissue inflammatory response. However, few published studies have investigated associations between functional genetic variants of autophagy-related genes and radiation pneumonitis (RP) as well as clinical outcomes in patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) after definitive radiotherapy. METHODS: We genotyped nine potentially functional single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in four autophagy-related genes (ATG2B, ATG10, ATG12 and ATG16L2) in 393 North American NSCLC patients treated by definitive radiotherapy and assessed their associations with RP, local recurrence-free survival (LRFS), progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) in multivariable Cox proportional hazards regression analyses...

BACKGROUND: Pulmonary sarcomatoid carcinoma (PSC) is an unusual form of non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Because of its rarity and heterogeneity, the treatment and prognosis of PSC have not been clearly described. METHODS AND MATERIALS: We retrospectively evaluated all patients with a diagnosis of PSC from 1997 to 2015 at the Mayo Clinic (Rochester, MN). The clinical characteristics, treatment details, and outcomes were collected. The survival rates of the PSC patients were compared with those for other subtypes of NSCLC...

BACKGROUND: The present study estimated the cost of advanced non-small cell lung cancer care for a cohort of 251 patients enrolled in a Brazilian public hospital and identified factors associated with the cost of treating the disease, considering sociodemographic, clinical and behavioral characteristics of patients, service utilization patterns and survival time. METHODS: Estimates were obtained from the survey of direct medical cost per patient from the hospital's perspective...

The tumor suppressor gene TP53 is the most frequently mutated gene in human cancer. It encodes p53, a DNA-binding transcription factor that regulates multiple genes involved in DNA repair, metabolism, cell cycle arrest, apoptosis, and senescence. TP53 is associated with human cancer by mutations that lead to a loss of wild-type p53 function as well as mutations that confer alternate oncogenic functions that enable them to promote invasion, metastasis, proliferation, and cell survival. Identifying the discrete TP53 mutations in tumor cells may help direct therapies that are more effective...